New chapter
Giannandrea Poesio
Royal Ballet Triple Bill Royal Opera House Darcey Bussell and Igor Zelensky Sadler’s Wells Iwas unable to review the new Royal Ballet triple bill immediately after its opening, which was unfortunate because this programme ought to have as much praise and publicity as possible.
Much of its success should be credited to Wayne McGregor’s new commission, Chroma, a dynamic injection of fresh blood into today’s anaemic ballet culture. It is visually stunning — the sets are by John Pawson and the costumes by Moritz Junge — and relies on off-whites, bright greys and pastel hues to frame the intriguingly angular but at the same time fluid movements. The dancers I saw — Alina Cojocaru, Sarah Lamb, Lauren Cuthbertson, Tamara Rojo, Federico Bonelli, Eric Underwood, Ludovic Ondiviela, Jonathan Watkins, Steven Mcrae and Edward Watson — were simply superb in displaying a unique physical response to the visually stimulating twists of the choreography. The dance, which never tires thanks to a constant outpouring of inventiveness, matches perfectly Joby Talbot’s equally exciting music, including arrangements of pieces by Jack White III — something that, along with a special pricing campaign, helped pull new crowds to the Royal Opera. It is not surprising that last Friday Wayne McGregor was officially appointed Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer. His work deserves this kind of recognition. Indeed, Chroma opens a new chapter in ballet history.
The evening continued on a high note with George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, arguably one of the most demanding examples of mid-20th-century balletic neo-classicism. Meticulously staged by Nanette Glushak, a repetiteur who knows how to pass on a deep understanding of Balanchine’s art, the ballet is a splendid vehicle for the talent and artistry of dancers such as Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta, Marianela Nuñez, Edward Watson and Viacheslav Samodurov. Still, I wish their approach to the choreographic demands had been less soft-toned. After all, a sharp, almost nervous attack is an essential requirement of Balanchine’s idiom; as a respected colleague once said: ‘In Balanchine’s ballets legs must not just perform steps. They must make a statement.’ The whole thing was a joy to watch and sat stylistically and artistically well between McGregor’s Chroma and the final item on the programme (another commission), Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV (Danse à grande vitesse). Like many other works by the same choreographer, DGV stands out for its well-thought-out architectural structure. There is, in other words, a great deal of choreographic craft, and the ballet’s construction is seldom trite or trivial. But the sound, linear layout is frequently obliterated by an overuse of movements that distract and detract from the overall quality of the work. The complex sets, by Jean-Marc Puissant, and the rather dim lighting, by Jennifer Tipton, do not help either. The ballet, therefore, comes across as a massive deployment of dancers on stage with little or no content. Viewers soon lose interest in the subtle structural games of lines, entrances and exits, and all they are left with is a pompously chaotic choreographic hotchpotch. It’s a pity, for Wheeldon is renowned for his creative acuteness and refined sense of dance-making. Some of the artists praised above appeared in it, but their contribution did little to improve the disappointing standard of this creation.
Among them was Darcey Bussell who, in the same week, starred with the Russian sensation Igor Zelensky in a composite programme at Sadler’s Wells. Expectations were high, but any enthusiasm deflated rapidly, for the evening was one of the flattest I have ever attended. Alastair Marriott’s Kiss, with Bussell and William Trevitt — both in ghastly shiny costumes — was hardly an ideal opener, for it did not provide the sparkle required to make viewers ask for more. By the time we reached the mid-section of the second item, Alla Sigalova’s interminable solo Concerto Grosso for Zelensky, an epidemic of visible and audible yawning was spreading throughout the auditorium. Whispers in the Dark, by Edwaard Liang, as the central item, was no less tiresome, even though it provided a nice showcase for the six dancers from Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, of which Zelensky is the new director.
Luckily, the mercifully short evening concluded with Roland Petit’s Le jeune homme et le mort. Created in 1946 to a libretto by Jean Cocteau, the work remains a splendidly unsettling, ageless masterwork. Zelensky, as the young man of the title, proved one of its best interpreters ever, both in technical and interpretative terms. Bussell, on the contrary, looked miscast as the haunting femme fatale Cocteau had in mind. She is beautiful and, at times, seductive, but she never manages to take full advantage of the French film-noir nuances of the part. Still, her questionable performance did not impinge that much on Zelensky’s explosive rendition and the mercifully short evening ended with a bang.
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